Dozens of trees and power lines down, parks flooded in Union County

Jennifer Brown/The Star-LedgerSean Lynskey, left center, takes his children Erin, 8, right, Kyle, 8, left, and Ryan, 5, on a wet and muddy adventure through the flooded woods of Nomahegan Park in Cranford.
UNION COUNTY — The powerful weekend storm caused scattered power outages and flooding throughout Union County, with dozens of trees and power lines down.

Both the Lenape Park in Springfield and the Nomahegan Park in Cranford were completely under water, said county spokesperson Seb Delia. Both parks were closed until Monday, when the waters receded.

"These are two flood basin areas to begin with. When it rains, that thing is going to look like a pool," Delia said. "They’re flood retention parks, kind of hollowed out. It’s what the park was designed to do."

Cranford police evacuated residents from five homes in the Riverside Drive area of town, though the floodwaters were not so high as to require the use of rescue boats, said Lt. Robert Colaneri.

"It was high enough go into the garages, but not high enough for our boats to be in the water," Colaneri said. "We used the DPW’s (Department of Public Works) four-wheel drive front-end loaders."

The basement of Orange Avenue School served as a temporary shelter and six residents stayed overnight, Colaneri said.

In Kenilworth, the weekend storm brought scattered power outages, and plenty of flooded basements, said borough police Capt. Scott Phillips.

"There were an awful lot of basements flooded," Phillips said. "The fire department pumped out a lot of water."

Route 22 in Scotch Plains and Plainfield was closed periodically at the height of the storm on Saturday due to flooding in the area, said county spokesperson Seb Delia.

Also, the Rahway River in Springfield and Rahway was well over the flood stage until the water receded on Sunday, Delia said.